The Yankees’ move to their new stadium has been marred by less-than-inspiring game play and underpopulated stands.

“Hard To Believe.” That was the headline on ESPN.com the day Alex Rodriguez met with the media to answer questions regarding his use of performance-enhancing drugs. The four accompanying photos showed Rodriguez’s facial expressions ranging from contempt to guilt to shame.

As the sports world adapts to a struggling economy, industry executives are looking for cheap alternatives to reach consumers and promote their brands. Their latest search has led many to social media, specifically social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Friendster and Bebo.

During the Yankees run of six World Series births and four wins in eight seasons, I marveled at the disdain other baseball fans had for the Bombers.

“You look like an 80’s rapper.” Those were the first words my older brother and Brown legend, Ross Trudeau ’06, said to me upon my return from three months in Portland, Ore. I wanted to protest, but my multicolored Nike 6.0 Dunks, bright shirt and backwards purple Air-Jordan hat made any comeback attempt impossible.

It’s February 2008, which means for the better part of a year, people have been looking forward to one upcoming event. It makes for perhaps the best reality television possible, captivates our imagination and forces millions to root for someone they hadn’t been rooting for all season long.

Rather than complain about the ineptitude that is Isiah Thomas, pretend to care about college football (they’re still using the BCS, wtf, mate?) or write about the Patriots’ league, aka the NFL, I’d like to take this opportunity to share some of my most common sports daydreams.

This offseason’s barren free-agent market has left many teams scrambling to fill holes and improve their clubs via trade. The hottest names available are two-time Cy Young Award-winner Johan Santana and the National League’s best young slugger, Miguel Cabrera.

Basketball is a sport that tracks more statistics than perhaps any sport besides baseball, and yet there has been very little mainstream work done toward applying a player’s statistics to see how he affects a team’s chances of winning a game, as has recently become popular in baseball.

After seeing Scott Boras refuse to let the Yankees meet with his top client and free agent, Alex Rodriguez, without an offer of at least 10 years and $350 million, I reacted the way anyone familiar with the economics of baseball would: with a chuckle. It defies logic to think an owner would willingly pay a single player that much money.